


A Hidden Place

by malinaldarose (coralysendria)



Category: Earth: Final Conflict
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Caves, Episode Related, Episode: s02e08 Redemption, Gen, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-08
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:33:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22621048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coralysendria/pseuds/malinaldarose
Summary: Siobhan Beckett has a favorite cavern where she likes to climb.  Liam Kincaid also has a use for it.Takes place just prior to the second season episode "Redemption" and about a year later.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	A Hidden Place

**Part I: Siobhan**

On her last day, Siobhan Beckett wakes before dawn from a dream of which she remembers only pieces: a small green-eyed boy who suddenly becomes Liam Kincaid, Ronald Sandoval's unsmiling face, and a nameless dread. The dread stays with her as she climbs out of bed. Her runes have been telling her for days that something is coming, and prescience tingles down her spine as she runs through her tai chi forms.

The meditation in motion does not soothe her spirit as it normally does, so she abandons it halfway through her morning routine. Her head is throbbing, suddenly, and she realizes that it's going to be one of those days. The headaches have been bothering her for weeks; sudden sharp spikes of pain that vanish just as quickly as they appear, leaving only a lingering ghost of discomfort. 

It is not only the headaches. She has also been troubled by visions of the past. Not memories, precisely. More like her Sight gone in the wrong direction, showing her the past rather than the future -- not all of it comfortable. She has been a soldier most of her life, and while some of her actions have been benign enough, others now fill her with shame. Some of her deeds even before the Taelons came were reprehensible -- it's hard to fight terrorists without dipping one's own hands in the muck. She had always been guided by the belief that her actions would lead eventually to peace and safety for the children she hoped to bring into the world.

What she has done in service to the Taelons has nothing to do with peace and safety. 

When the Taelons unified Ireland, Siobhan knew she had to answer their call -- out of gratitude, if nothing more. But truth to tell, she was proud that they chose her. She intended only to serve for a while, then go home, finally free to have the ten children she always told her mum she wanted.

No one knew then about the cyber-viral implants with their motivational imperatives or about how anyone implanted with a CVI was leashed to the Taelons for life.

But of late, the leash has seemed looser. Siobhan has entertained thoughts that would have been impossible a few weeks ago. She's hardly ready to run out and join the Resistance, but she has been questioning things that she never thought to question before. 

She abruptly realizes that if she stands woolgathering in the middle of her lounge in her workout gear much longer, she is going to be late for work, so she heads into the bathroom for a shower. Flipping on the lights, she glances in the mirror...and sees the blood trickling from her ear. She raises a hand slowly, touches a finger to it. Stares at the blood on her hand.

"Ah," she says, raising her eyes to her reflection. "So that's it."

Her CVI is failing.

Ronald Sandoval's CVI failed several months ago, not long before she first met him. For a few precious hours, he escaped the yoke of the Taelons, but he was eventually drawn back and implanted with a new CVI. His life was saved, but at the cost of his free will. At the time, she was glad of it; the Taelons shouldn't lose such a valuable agent. In the last few weeks, her opinion has changed. Siobhan doesn't want that; she would far rather die than be reimplanted. She will not continue to commit atrocities at the behest of the Taelons.

As she stares at her reflection, her eyes are drawn to the climbing gear she can see over her shoulder. Running late to an engagement with her Companion, she left it piled carelessly in the corner of her bedroom after the last time she used it. But now....

Yes, perfect. She will not be reporting for duty today -- or ever again. Instead, she'll spend her last hours climbing; her favorite caves are accessible only to master climbers; she's almost guaranteed to have them to herself. As a bonus, the rock there is riddled with ferrous oxide which will block Taelon scans. They won't find her until it's too late.

Her mind made up, she scrubs the blood away briskly, and gets ready to leave.

~*~*~

**Part II: Liam**

Liam's feet touch ground and he steps back from the rock face, watching as Augur, dressed as usual in a skin-tight t-shirt, this one an eye-searing shade of green, rappels from the high cavern opening to land neatly beside him. He can just make out Renee's blonde hair glowing in the sunlight as she peers over the rim. Though a good climber, she has opted to stay above; she has a meeting later with Zo'or aboard the Mothership, and cannot afford to appear sweaty and dishevelled. As it is, she will be changing into her meeting clothes in the back of the shuttle. Liam himself is dressed in his usual dark clothing, though his jeans have been exchanged for looser cargo pants. He, too, will change in the back of the shuttle after he drops Renee off for her meeting.

"Okay, Renee," Liam says into his mic, "send the stuff down."

While Liam's attention is on the bale of supplies and equipment that Renee is now lowering into the cavern on the automated rigging he and Augur set up before their descent, Augur wanders around the cavern, hopping over the rushing stream. He climbs onto each of the ledges, standing like a neon king surveying his kingdom before climbing to the next.

"Very nice," he opines, returning to Liam's side. He switches off his microphone, then reaches out quickly and turns off Liam's as well.

"Hey!" Liam protests, noting absently that both movements and his flinch were blocked from Renee's sight by the load of supplies. And with the mics off, she won't be able to hear them; even if they weren't too far away, the chattering of the stream over the rocks would cover their voices. "What're you doing, Augur?"

"Are you sure you want to do this, Liam?" Augur asks, his expression unwontedly serious. "I mean, this is where your mother died. Are you sure you're okay with this?"

A shadow passes through Liam's grey-green eyes as he remembers the day a year ago when he had searched for his mother, knowing that she was dying and hoping to find her before it was too late. He couldn't save her -- by then, not even the Taelons could save her -- but he could let her know that she had at least had the child she so longed for. He had reached her just in time.

He understands now why Augur shut off their mics. After Renee's reaction to finding out that Liam wasn't entirely human -- and that one of his fathers was Ronald Sandoval, the closest thing the Resistance had to an archenemy (other than the Taelons themselves) -- Liam had decided not to pass on any more information about his heritage unless it became absolutely necessary. Renee knows that Siobhan Beckett died in this cave when her CVI failed. She does not know that Siobhan was Liam's mother.

He takes his eyes off the slowly descending supply bale long enough to glance around the cavern, his gaze passing over the waterfall, the bulky stalagmites, the rock ledges. He is standing in the spot where Siobhan died; he will never forget his terror when he saw her lying there, blood pooled under her head, nor the anguish he felt as she died in his arms.

But that's not the reason they chose this place. They chose it because the ore composition of the walls blocks Taelon scans -- the reason Siobhan herself had come here. She had known that her CVI was failing, so she had chosen to spend her last hours doing something she enjoyed. In her eyes, it was all to the good that the Taelons wouldn't find her here; she had feared being dragged back and implanted with a new CVI. These caves are known to spelunkers and climbers both, but are difficult to reach and there is a myriad of side tunnels and little pocket caves. It is a good place to hide an emergency supply cache for the Resistance. Both Augur and Renee had agreed.

"It's okay, Augur," Liam says. "She told me to fight the Taelons. She would approve of this."

Augur shrugs. "Okay. Just wanted to make sure." 

"A little late now," Liam mutters with a wry look at the supplies that are now just over their heads.

"Better late than never," Augur returns with an insouciant grin. 

Liam rolls his eyes in response. As one, they switch their mics back on and get back to the business at hand.


End file.
